MWF Seeking BFF (41 page)

“I think I just passed my neighbor,” I whisper, still on the phone with Mom. I put my head down and plow past the dairy. “I hope she doesn’t see me. I’m not fit for public consumption.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Wait, I should probably talk to her. Maybe she’d go out with me. I’ve been wanting to socialize with a neighbor.”

No matter how much friendlier I’ve become this year, when I’m dressed like a bum and running an errand, it will always be my first instinct to run in the other direction when I see a semi-familiar face. But I can’t pass up this opportunity.

I hang up with my mom and turn back to where I came from. “You’re Irene, right?”

“Huh?”

“I’m Rachel. I live in your building? We’ve worked out in the gym together.”

“Oh right! How are you?”

“I’m good, thanks. I just wanted to officially introduce myself, I don’t really know many of the neighbors.”

Irene is chatty, and starts asking me about our apartment. What’s the layout like? Do we own or rent? She’s in her
mid-to-late thirties, I’d guess, and from what I can tell is single with no kids.

“We should get lunch sometime,” I tell her. “I’ve always wanted a neighbor friend. It would nice to have someone to borrow a cup of sugar from.” It’s an old-fashioned idea, the neighborly drop-by. One that has been largely replaced by the “good fences make good neighbors” mind-set. According to recent research, 28 percent of Americans know none of their neighbors by name, and this has a lot to do with why Americans are more isolated than ever. I’d love for Irene to keep a copy of my keys or pick up my packages while I’m away. And I’ll do the same for her.

I grew up on a small street with neighborhood block parties and garage sales. It’s not quite the same when you live in an apartment building, but it could be.

She laughs. “For sure! Let me give you my card.”

“Great, I’ll use it,” I say. “I’m a good follow-upper.” It’s important to give people this warning. Oftentimes I’ll exchange email addresses with someone, tell them I’ll be in touch, and they’re still shocked to hear from me. People expect it’s all lip service.

“Fantastic! I’m not.”

I appreciate her honesty.

FRIEND-DATE 48.
There’s a lot riding on this date. Celia the clothing store manager has been a hot prospect since the beginning. I really want it to work out. So much so, in fact, that I revisited
Click
for advice: Be vulnerable, sit close, call attention to all our similarities no matter how seemingly insignificant, and casually touch her shoulder or elbow when possible. I know, it sounds weird. But according to the Brafman brothers we associate physical contact with closeness. “Being
touched, even for a second, makes us far more attracted to the person touching us,” they write. “It makes us more prone to form a connection. A similar pattern emerges with casual eye contact.”

We’ll see. I’m a big believer in personal space. Women who touch my arm too much in conversation generally turn me off. But maybe touching isn’t strange. Maybe I am.

I also need to keep in mind the importance of storytelling. I know enough about Celia, the basic who-what-where of her life, to jump right into funny stories and skip the small talk.

I get to the restaurant a few minutes early. When Celia arrives, wearing a cashmere wrap sweater that I would die to have in my closet and her down-to-there hair pulled half-up with a barrette, we greet each other with a strange wave. The worst. It’s like we know each other too well to shake hands, but we’re not at a hugging place yet. I’ve been working on honing my is-she-a-hugger radar (you learn the importance of such a skill after the tenth bumbling embrace) and Celia doesn’t have a warm and fuzzy aura. So much for touching.

As soon as we sit down I can feel the tension. I wonder if I ruined our chances by placing the stakes too high. It’s like when I finally forced Matt to watch an episode of
Friday Night Lights
after continually telling him it was the best show on television. Of course it was that weird one where Julie was looking at colleges and half the episode was filmed in Boston. Hello? Where was Texas? It did not represent the show’s brilliance one bit. So frustrating.

I built Celia up too much.

There’s nothing wrong with our dinner, per se. It’s perfectly friendly, civil. Celia’s really nice. But it’s not easy, the way conversation is with Jillian or Hannah or Hilary. After four dozen dates the difference is obvious. Here, I’m constantly
trying to decide what I should say next because I can see the long pauses coming down the pike.

“I don’t know why, but I have a tendency to befriend women who are all older,” Celia says. She’s 27, but tells me that most of her friends are in their mid-to-late thirties. “I’m just a homebody. I don’t like going out, and maybe that’s what the girls my age want to do.”

I’m a homebody. I don’t go clubbing. I’m pretty sure her low-keyness isn’t what’s making this tough. Celia’s just … serious. I can’t picture her cracking up or letting loose. I’m the opposite. I like to make fun of myself, be silly, laugh uncontrollably.

At least the date didn’t go
badly.
There was no conflict or hostility. I can still go to Celia’s store without it being uncomfortable, thank God. Losing a potential friend
and
potential outfits would be a real tragedy.

Considering how much I wanted this to work out, I may even follow up. Perhaps we need a second date. But for the moment I’ve curbed my expectations for BFFdom. Reluctantly.

Maritza, the other recent pickup, isn’t looking good in the follow-up department either. It was only two weeks ago so I’m not discounting her, but she already canceled our first follow-up date. When she suggested we reschedule and I sent over some dates that worked for me, I got radio silence. I’ll try again soon, but this is not a good sign.

“It’s December first. One month to go.”

“You’re so close,” Matt says.

“I know it. For the next thirty days I’m going all out. And I’m dragging you with me.”

It’s time for Matt to meet my friends. Yes, he’s met Margot and Hannah, and he works with Natalie. But he’s been out of the picture for the last few months. Holiday parties seem like a good venue for jumping back in. I’ve already gotten five invitations from people I didn’t know last year, plus I’m doing gift exchanges with my coworkers and my book club.

Not to toot my own horn, but I’m feeling pretty satisfied with my efforts.

“Okay. For this month, I’m game,” he says.

“Great. I’ve already RSVP’d us for a Chanukah party on Friday—my friend Meredith from LEADS is hosting—and on Saturday we have dinner plans with Rachel from improv.”

“Can’t wait.”

I thought about hosting a holiday party of my own. What better way to see the fruits of my labor than to gather all my new friends in one living room? But the calendar is already so full that I’m not sure where I’d fit my soiree in. Not to mention that a rager of some fifty-one women and one gay guy might make for an odd Friday night.

At Meredith’s house, I look around the room. It’s all women. Matt is parking the car and I’m pretty sure he’s going to want to kill me when he sees this.

“So, are any guys coming?” I ask. Her brief romance with Steve from LEADS has fizzled, so I don’t anticipate seeing him.

“They were supposed to but three just canceled. One’s sick, one’s studying for the GMAT, and I don’t know what’s going on with the last one,” Meredith says.

“What about Rob?” Meredith and I have both become friends with the leader of our LEADS group.

“Oh yeah! He’s coming with a friend in about an hour.”

The buzzer rings. It’s Matt. I intercept him at the door.

“So, I really appreciate you coming with me. Thank you,” I say. Always good to build them up before you knock them down.

Matt nods, aware there’s more to this conversation.

“And I just want to warn you before you go in that it’s all girls.”

Matt’s eyes are wide. He’s not legitimately mad, I know, but he’d rather be anywhere but here. “Are you serious?” He says it with a laugh, a distinct you-owe-me-one tone.

“Rob’s coming, though. With a friend,” I say. “I’ve told you about Rob right? And in the meantime, talk me up. I still need two more dates.”

It’s a pretty uneventful dinner. Meredith tries to explain the story of Chanukah to her non-Jewish guests who want to understand the prayers and the food and what Meredith and I do at LEADS. We eat latkes and chicken soup and light candles. Eventually Rob and his friend come, and Matt has some testosterone to back him up.

At about 11
P.M.
Matt ducks out to meet some friends at a bar. I’m having fun and I think there’s a potential girl-date in Samantha, Meredith’s friend who keeps saying we should do yoga together, so I stay put.

Like I said, it’s pretty uneventful. Until Rob asks Meredith to show off her strength. I hadn’t noticed until now, but Meredith has a pull-up bar hanging in the doorway to her living room. Rob’s not so sure she can execute.

Of course, child that I am, I want in on the action. “I wanna try!”

I have no idea if I can do a pull-up, but I’ve got decent upper-body strength. I can do push-ups, and not the on-your-knees kind. Naturally, my first go should be in front of a roomful of people.

Meredith’s up first. She jumps for the bar, and suddenly it comes crashing down. On my head.

“Ow!” My hand flies to my forehead. It feels like a minor headache. Nothing major but definite pain. And then: “Oh my god there’s blood. Lots of blood.”

According to the bathroom mirror, there’s just a small cut. I can’t quite figure out how all that blood—it’s covering my hands, and my shirt, and Meredith’s floor—could have come from such a tiny scratch. Meredith gives me a Band-Aid and when I glance back in the mirror, maybe three seconds later, my small cut has become a goiter. There’s an egg protruding from my forehead.

My first battle wound! I’ve been in the trenches for almost a year and today I’ve been injured in the line of duty.

I think poor Meredith is more upset than I am. A little ice will make the wound go down, no stitches are necessary, and now my new friend and I have a great story. Clobbering someone on the head with a big metal bar is a pretty direct route to shared memories.

In fifty years we’ll be drinking iced tea in our nursing home reminiscing about the time I almost bled out on her floor.

Seriously, it’s the stuff that dreams are made of.

FRIEND-DATES 49, 50, 51.
Joanna, Irene, Meg. All fine. I knew Joanna from my summer camp days and recently bumped into her at a neighborhood restaurant. Meg and I went to college together. When I saw her at a holiday party, I invited her out for drinks. I was friendly with both of them in my former
camp-and-college lives, but not friends with them, and I anticipate this is how things will stay. Not because the dates were bad—they weren’t particularly—but they weren’t great, either. And I finally have the luxury of holding out for great.

But was the just-okay-ness my fault? Have I resorted to merely going through the motions to reach my goal of fifty-two?

I don’t think so. I mean, I wanted to amp up the date with Meg to a full dinner. She opted instead for a quick drink. And I was sure Joanna and I would be a perfect fit. We both left New York magazine jobs for Chicago, we’re both writers and bloggers, and we know plenty of people in common. She was more formal than friendly, as if we didn’t perform in summer gymnastics shows together when we were kids. I got the sense she wasn’t interested.

Taking a second stab at friendship sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. This time, it didn’t.

I met Irene, my neighbor, at a diner near our apartment. Considering her admission that she’s terribly busy and bad at follow-through, I don’t have high hopes. She doesn’t seem anxious to expand her social network. At least not in the female department. But we shared a perfectly pleasant meal. Irene’s a talker, and told me all about her family, her job, and her take on Rahm Emanuel. We don’t seem destined for BFFship, but there is real value in even a casual friendship here. In fact, just this week a Christmas present I ordered went missing from our lobby. I sent an email to my neighbors asking if anyone had mistakenly scooped up my package in their travels, and Irene was the one who wrote back with the suggestion that I scour the hallways.

“Maybe it was delivered to someone’s door who’s out of town?”

It wasn’t, but still. She probably wouldn’t have reached out if we hadn’t had the lunch date.

As we left the diner, Irene told me that we should definitely grab lunch again. “Don’t forget I’m bad at initiating, but I’ll definitely respond if you email me.”

Those aren’t the words of someone who wants to be bosom buddies, but I’d certainly invite her over for drinks or ask her for that cup of sugar.